8-year-old shot with arrow during UC Berkeley field trip

An 8-year-old girl’s field trip to a science center on UC Berkeley’s campus abruptly ended after she was shot in the leg with a 28-inch arrow.

The third-grader from the Mary E. Silveria Elementary School was playing on a life-size model of a fin whale outside the Lawrence Hall of Science on Tuesday when she was hit in her thigh, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Campus police say they are unsure whether the incident was an accident or not, but they don’t see any connection with experiments and demonstrations that are ongoing at the science building.

Investigators are looking at an area near the building that has homes and a parking lot and are trying to determine the arrow’s trajectory to find out where it came from, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The arrow has been surgically removed from the girl, who was held overnight at a local area hospital, ABC 7 reports. Her injuries are not life-threatening.

(03-26) 18:12 PDT BERKELEY -- An 8-year-old San Rafael girl visiting the Lawrence Hall of Science in the hills above UC Berkeley was shot in the leg by an arrow Tuesday, police said.

The girl, a third-grader at Mary E. Silveira Elementary School in San Rafael who was at the public science center on a class field trip, was sitting on a life-size model of a fin whale outside the building at 1 Centennial Drive when she was hit in her left thigh by an arrow about 10 a.m., UC Berkeley police Capt. Steve Roderick said.

The girl suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to Children's Hospital Oakland with the arrow still lodged in her leg, authorities said. Her name has not been released.

The shooter has not been found. It wasn't immediately known whether the girl was hit accidentally or on purpose, Roderick said.

"It doesn't appear to be associated with any experiments or demonstrations or anything associated with the Hall of Science," he said.

Geoff Vassallo, 51, of Mariposa, who was accompanying students on another field trip, said he had been standing near the whale and saw the girl moments after she was shot.

"She was pretty calm. She was crying a little bit. She said, 'Oh, it hurts,' " Vassallo said. "One of the adults was comforting her, waiting for the emergency personnel to get here."

Vassallo, who is himself an archer, estimated that the arrow was 28 inches long. Archers use arrows of varying lengths depending on their height, and the one that hit the girl was made for an "average adult," he said.

"You shouldn't be shooting an arrow around here at all," Vassallo said. "There's no range here. You're not going to have archery here, with kids like this."

He added, "Poor little girl - she comes to have a nice day at the science hall, and she gets stuck with an arrow by some idiot."

Police used yellow caution tape to block off the whale and part of the plaza, which offers sweeping views of the bay. The science center remained open to visitors, including many schoolchildren on field trips.

Officers looking for the shooter were focusing on an area north of the science center where there are several houses and a parking lot. Campus police were assisted by Berkeley city police and the Oakland police helicopter, which made a few passes of the area at midday.

Investigators will also try to analyze the arrow's trajectory to determine where it came from.

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jrs - italics and bold mine. Notice they imply a hidden shooter. So now the cries will go up to ban these assault bows.

jrs
--
"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.", Will Durant

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.", Edmund Burke

Probably an imported, foreign arrow too!
(kinda mean to joke though, I took my kid up there too a couple years ago, its right at the very top of a steep canyon overlooking the San Francisco Bay a few miles away.)